Book, Art, & Culture

People en Español selected the Stars of the Year 2007. This selection includes actors/actresses (Kate del Castillo, Adamari López, and Angélica Vale), singers (Luis Miguel, Jennifer López, Juan Luis Guerra andVíctor Manuelle) and the couple of the year (Don Omar and his girlfriend Jackie Guerrido).

Jennifer Lopez – She accomplished a lot this year…between the Spanish album, the English album, El Cantante, the Univision miniseries, the continuous success of her clothing line, her first tour with her hubby, and being pregnant with her first babe…when does she sleep?

Kate Del Castillo – Taking Hollywoodby storm. This year she starred in Trade and The Black Pimpernel. Next year she is set to star in four films – Julia, Bad Guys, Under the Same Moon and Por vida (For Life).

Angelica Vale – The Comedian of the Year. She really did a superb job in La Fea Mas Bella.

Adamari Lopez – Named the “year’s comeback” for her return to telenovelas.

Juan Luis Guerra and Victor Manuelle are recognized for their successful year in the music industry.

Don Omar and Jackie Guerrido – The Couple of the Year.

Luis Miguel – Dad of the Year – His first son was born this year and he finally stepped up to the father role with his estranged daughter.

The Writer Mama, Christina Katz, is giving away a writing tool a day through her blog, The Writer Mama Riffs, every day for thirty days during the month of September. In addition to over thirty prizes such as Writer’s Digest 2008 Market books, she’s giving away ten signed copies of her book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids and a one-hour writing career phone consult.

Moms and Dads who write are especially encouraged to participate in celebration of this hectic yet wonderful back-to-school time of year. However, anyone who participates is eligible to win daily prizes.

The announcement was made that Lougart would be playing the lead role of Celia Cruz in the off-Broadway production of Celia.

The role of Pedro Knight, Cruz’s husband and the narrator of the story, was grabbed by Puerto Rican Modesto Lacen. Last year, Lacen received rave reviews for his performance in Gardel the Musical, based on Argentina’s most famous tango singer, Carlos Gardel.

As for Lougart, she left Yerba Buena in order to persue the role of Celia. It will be a loss for the band, but it looks like she’s been moving in another direction for awhile now. Last year Lougart released her self-titled album Xiomara with songs written by Meme Solis and Andres Levin. For those curious to hear the new Celia, you can get a taste of her talent at Xiomara Lougart’s MySpace page.

The musical is set to open on September 12, 2007 at New World Stages. Now all you have to do is think of some critical business or pressing personal reason why you just have to be in NYC this fall!

“Frida Kahlo spun her own life into a myth. She was so good at it that her art almost got lost along the way. Her persona, fashioned over almost three decades of self-portraits, fused physical suffering and emotional isolation. Her frank depiction of a womans psychic pain made her a feminist icon. She became a Chicana heroine and an unintended purveyor of Mexican kitsch. She is an emblem of confessional painting at a time when nothing is intimate anymore.

But this year, as Mexico celebrates the centenary of her birth, the largest retrospective ever of her work attempts to look beyond what Mexicans call Fridamania. The result is a rich view of her art and her life, one that broadens the perspective on her career beyond the narrow, cultish view that has at times threatened to obscure her work.”

This fall, another Univision news reporter will be hitting the bookshelves. Award-winning journalist and news anchor Enrique Gratas signed a deal with Mexico’s Random House Mondadori to publish his first book, El arte de la infidelidad (“The Art of Infidelity”).According to Random House Spanish business development director Erik Reisenberg, the book—which is scheduled to release this September in Mexico and the United States—takes an in-depth approach to a subject Hispanics do not discuss openly. “Gratas is uniquely qualified to tackle this kind of volatile subject matter in a thorough and objective manner,” said Reisenberg.

With over 30 years in journalism, Gratas became known in U.S. homes as the anchor of Telemundo’s television news magazine Ocurrió Así (“How It Happened”). Gratas left that show in 1999 to launch Última Hora (“Newsflash”) on Univision; the live TV news magazine is currently the second most popular newscast on Spanish-language television.

“Statistics show that infidelity is a serious problem in our society,” Gratas told Críticas, explaining that the subject is “not openly discussed because it continues being taboo.”

Gratas conducted his research for several months, reading published studies and surveys, and drawing upon stories people shared with him. “This book addresses many of the doubts [associated with infidelity] and will be very useful to those dealing with this problem,” said the author, describing his work as “real, dramatic, and novelistic.”

“Gratas has a unique ability to take difficult situations and turn them into learning experiences,” Reisenberg says of the author. Marketing for the U.S. release includes an interactive web page, www.elartedelainfidelidad.com, and an extensive author tour.

This month’s New Yorker Out Loud pod cast series, which consists of a New Yorker fiction writer discussing a story from the magazine’s voluminous archives, features the gifted Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat conversing with The New Yorker fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, about talented Dominican writer Junot Díaz’s 1995 short story “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie).“ The pod cast includes a reading of the straight up hilarious story by Mr. Díaz. In addition, The New Yorker online has another very funny selection written by Díaz as well as a fascinating excerpt from Danticat’s forthcoming memoir and a short story she wrote in 1995.

“Hammered silver masks, rare Incan counting devices and a clay vessel more than 3,000 years old, intricately carved with a feline deity.They were among stolen artifacts worth millions of dollars that U.S. officials returned to Perus government Wednesday. The more than 400 pieces represent Perus largest recovery from the U.S. since the two nations signed a 1997 accord to combat theft of pre-Columbian objects from the South American country.”